Or had it stop applying the Charge buff if you go over 3 attack. Like how a Bloodsail Corsair loses Charge if you break your weapon. But no, apparently Warsong Commander prevented Blizzard from making some hypothetical Neutral Dreadsteed or Neutral Patient Assassin, so it must burn forever in Being Worse Than Raid Leader.

Then again, by all accounts, they apparently really don't like Charge as it is, so...

__________________Disgruntled Forsaken Stable Master
"Blacker than a moonless night, hotter and more bitter than hell itself... That is coffee."

So, aside from stacking taunt and weapons, are there any viable warrior builds?

I've never been able to get a pure enrage/self damage deck going without patron and warsong commander.

I'd go so far as to call Patron Warrior effectively dead with this change. Warsong Commander enabled the deck's only two real win conditions (Patron swarm and giant Frothing Berserkers), and this nerf kills both of them. Warsong Commander is a dead card now, and any deck that uses it would be better served by replacing it with Charge.

With Patron gone, pretty much the only competitive Warrior deck is Control Warrior. On the plus side, it's a really strong deck. On the downside, you either need to get really lucky with packs or be ready to drop thousands of dust on crafting since many variants of it have upwards of half a dozen legendaries or more.

It sucks, because there have been people who have been suggesting ways to tone down Patron without absolutely obliterating it for months, with changes as simple as reducing Frothing Berserker's health by 1, which would have allowed the deck to still function but reduced the size of the combos it could pull off.

I never saw Patron Warrior as a viable deck to begin with. Control warrior is where it's been at for me.

__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terry Pratchett

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.

The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

I never saw Patron Warrior as a viable deck to begin with. Control warrior is where it's been at for me.

It was definitely a viable deck, considering how successful it was. It was a combo deck, though, so you couldn't predict whether or not you'd win a match as consistently as you could with more predictable decks like Face Hunter or Handlock. It was more like Miracle Rogue, where whether you win depended entirely on drawing all the tools you needed before the other guy could finish you off.

Whether you liked playing it was a matter of personal preference. I personally did, but I also recognized that it was irritating to play against and was not opposed to a nerf as long as it didn't kill the deck concept entirely. But it was definitely viable.

What I don't get is people who wanted to kill the deck outright, and seemed to think that reducing the number of viable decks in the game would somehow magically result in a wider variety of decks being played (though it's probably more true that they wanted Patron dead because it was one of the few decks that countered their preferred deck).

As a side note, Patron was pretty strong against Secret Paladin, so in their zeal to kill an older annoying deck, Blizzard just made a new annoying deck stronger by getting rid of one of its natural predators. GG.

I'm making waves with a Dragon Priest deck at the moment. I've got a Secretdin deck, and I can't deny that it's very powerful, though I haven't seen a lot of them around.

__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terry Pratchett

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.

The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

I'm making waves with a Dragon Priest deck at the moment. I've got a Secretdin deck, and I can't deny that it's very powerful, though I haven't seen a lot of them around.

Dragon Priest is a solid deck, though more so against aggressive decks. As for Secret Paladin, probably one of the main reasons you don't see too many yet (besides the TGT card requirements) is because it's weak against Patron Warrior. I would not be the least bit surprised if there's a massive boom in the number of Secret Paladins once the "Kill Patron Warrior" patch goes live, at least until everyone can figure out an alternate deck to counter it.

I no longer have that problem. The key is to not D/E every class card you don't see an immediate value for - keep them and build a roster. Aside from Priest and Rogue, all classes lend themselves very well to aggro decks.

__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terry Pratchett

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.

The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Sounds like they had to nerf Warsong Commander for other reasons, though. Not just because of Patron.

Patron was the immediate reason, but yeah, basically their stated reason for the nerf is that they regret having Charge exist at all as a mechanic in the game.

Of course, the change they settled on was to make it worse than Raid Leader. Once it goes through, probably the only time we will ever see Warsong Commander again would be in "Worst Cards in Hearthstone" lists. We'll see it appear in more Mage decks than Warrior decks because there's still a chance one will come out of Unstable Portal.

Anyway, Brode said that they tried 30 or 40 different designs, but chose this nerf because it's what felt best for the card. I have to admit that I'm intrigued to see what those 30-40 attempts were. How nightmarish would they have to be in order to have "make the card completely unplayable" be considered the best option?

I no longer have that problem. The key is to not D/E every class card you don't see an immediate value for - keep them and build a roster. Aside from Priest and Rogue, all classes lend themselves very well to aggro decks.

I only disenchant spares.

I suppose aggro decks frustrate me because if you put in countermeasures to board-wipes or taunt then you forfeit a bit of your early game power, but if you don't, you can get stomped by a few beefy minions or board-clears.

I still think the reason for the negative backlash is because Warrior only has one good deck, now, and that's Wallet Warrior. Patron itself was pretty cheap; you needed a wing of BRM (for the Patron and Emperor) and maybe a couple wings of Naxx to get your Death's Bite, but it wasn't necessary. The rest of the cards were either basic, common, or rare - with maybe a legendary if you wanted Grom.

I mean, it's still better than Shaman or Rogue, but that's not exactly something to be proud of.

Still, I get why Charge is such an issue; you can't really respond to a Charge minion unless you have a Secret or Taunt already on the board, and a lot of combo decks have used Charge for their killing blow. But changing Hearthstone to allow actions during your opponent's turn probably won't work, considering how it could be abused for griefing, or just because of mobile.

__________________Disgruntled Forsaken Stable Master
"Blacker than a moonless night, hotter and more bitter than hell itself... That is coffee."

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.

The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

More that area effect allowing everything to charge kind of doesn't work.

I don't think every charge card is a problem. But now that I think about it, I think the only new charge card in TGT was the yeti. Which can't attack directly.

I think mainly right now the game is faster than they want it to be.

Ben Brode said that they did not like charge and direct damage because they were things you could only prepare for, not things you could react to. So whether or not charge actually is the root of the problem, they obviously consider it to be one of the primary problems.

Which just makes the Warsong Commander change even more baffling. It's already going to be a worthless card, but since the devs are on record that they do not like charge, it seems likely that they are going to add as few charge minions as possible going forward, which is going to make WC's effect even less relevant. You can pretty much consider every non-charge minion they release from this point onward to be another nerf to WC, much like how every bad legendary card they release is effectively a slight nerf to Sneed's Shredder.

Edit: Also, there's something I wanted to add about the cascading effects of this nerf, and how the devs may have picked the wrong target to nerf. Destroying WC as a viable card has also made other cards effectively unplayable. Patron itself doesn't see any serious play outside Patron Warrior since the card is too slow without charge. Same with Frothing Berserker. We won't see Battle Rage much anymore since the only other viable Warrior deck doesn't play enough minions to reliably draw multiple cards from it. Gnomish Inventor will still show up from time to time, mainly in the decks of new players and F2P accounts that haven't had the time to get better cards, though.

But that got me thinking, during the BRM preview, the widespread response to Grim Patron from many of the big-name streamers was a resounding "meh." Some even mentioned pairing it with WC to get some value out of it as a joke.

That's because WC, Grim Patron, Inner Rage, Inner Rage, Whirlwind, Whirlwind was a 10 mana combo, which is pretty strong but uses a lot of cards, so it would have hardly set the world on fire. But, throw down Emperor Thaurissan the turn before, and that 10 mana combo suddenly becomes 6 mana. Get Thaurissan down with the right cards in hand, and suddenly you can do WC, Grim Patron, Frothing Berserker, Frothing Berserker, Inner Rage, Inner Rage, Whirlwind, Whirlwind for 10 mana, with the added possibility of a free Execute to get an enemy taunt out of the way of the oncoming freight train. Without Thaurissan, that combo would require 16 mana, 17 with Execute. Requires a very specific hand to pull off, but the damage potential is much much higher.

So, Thaurissan is perhaps the bigger offender, since he makes otherwise impossible combos possible and expensive combos cheap. In fact, every additional card required to pull off the combo makes him even stronger.

Brode said that they did not like charge and direct damage because they were things you could only prepare for, not things you could react to. So whether or not charge actually is the root of the problem, they obviously consider it to be one of the primary problems.

I interpreted that more as meaning it's a mechanic that they need to be careful with in regards to power, not that they regret the mechanic period.

I think there's plenty of charge cards that are fine. For every Warsong Commander/Leeroy Jenkins that is in the game.

Quote:

That's because WC, Grim Patron, Inner Rage, Inner Rage, Whirlwind, Whirlwind was a 10 mana combo, which is pretty strong but uses a lot of cards, so it would have hardly set the world on fire. But, throw down Emperor Thaurissan the turn before, and that 10 mana combo suddenly becomes 6 mana. Get Thaurissan down with the right cards in hand, and suddenly you can do WC, Grim Patron, Frothing Berserker, Frothing Berserker, Inner Rage, Inner Rage, Whirlwind, Whirlwind for 10 mana, with the added possibility of a free Execute to get an enemy taunt out of the way of the oncoming freight train. Without Thaurissan, that combo would require 16 mana, 17 with Execute. Requires a very specific hand to pull off, but the damage potential is much much higher.

So, Thaurissan is perhaps the bigger offender, since he makes otherwise impossible combos possible and expensive combos cheap. In fact, every additional card required to pull off the combo makes him even stronger.

Thassarian is problematic somewhat, but not as overwhelmingly problematic as Warsong was. Even from a design perspective there were cards they just couldn't release because of Warsong.

I still don't agree with HOW they changed her, but some change was necessary.

(Honestly, maybe something more like... Battlecry: Give a friendly minion charge would have been a bit more fair.)

Or increase her cost and stats a little bit to make her less combo-viable.

__________________
"The Demons did their job well. You creatures are as reckless and bloodthirsty as they ever were."

Thassarian is problematic somewhat, but not as overwhelmingly problematic as Warsong was. Even from a design perspective there were cards they just couldn't release because of Warsong.

I still don't agree with HOW they changed her, but some change was necessary.

(Honestly, maybe something more like... Battlecry: Give a friendly minion charge would have been a bit more fair.)

Or increase her cost and stats a little bit to make her less combo-viable.

One of the more common suggestions I've seen with Warsong Commander was to change it to "Your minions with 3 or less attack have Charge." That way, you could have still done Patron combos, but not the charging 25 attack Berserkers, since the Berserker would lose charge as soon as it ticked up to 4 attack.

Thaurissan does present a major design problem, though, and one that's hard to design around. Before, they could simply prevent a combo they do not want by making sure it would cost too much mana to play, but now they have to take into account combos that would normally cost over 10 mana because even one turn of Thaurissan could make it playable. So now they have to price stuff in such a way that card combos they don't want to see have to cost over 10 mana after discounting the costs of all the cards involved by 1, which actually gets harder for larger combos since Thaurissan's discount gets more pronounced when it hits more cards. For example, a 12-mana two-card combo gets discounted to 10 with Thaurissan, but a 12-mana four-card combo gets discounted to 8.

It's less that Thaurissan is problematic itself, but more that it makes every single problematic card (like Warsong Commander) worse.